It's hot and dry here, but I'm hot and refreshed.

Well, after getting to spend two weeks in the wonderfully lush United States, enjoying 60-80 degree weather with mild amounts of mugginess, I'm here in Kuwait, greeted by 110 degree weather about as dry as public bathroom toilet paper. In fact, I've had two random bloody noses due to the mixed heat/dryness' drying out the capillaries in my nostrils. That's annoying.

And, though it's hot and dry, and I'm stuck waiting on the weather to undust so I can fly back to my base, God knew that I needed a couple of days to reflect and relax before continuing on with my mission.

Due to a couple of exhaustingly deep conversations with my friends Jonathan and Alex, and my sister, I came back not quite feeling refreshed, and wondering how I was going to transition back to being an Army Sergeant again. Thankfully, God forced me to sit and think about Him and relax and read the Bible like I haven't done in quite some time. It sure is odd what God will use to get my attention and show me how much He loves me. Thanks, God.

Life in the United States

Well, I just finished my two weeks of Rest and Relaxation (so they call it) in the United States.

I really like the United States. I hopped on an airplane from Atlanta to Chicago, and a lady sat next to me with a small alien on her lap. She called it a "baby." It made odd, loud noises, and a large amount of liquid excreted through every orifice on it's body. It smiled at me randomly, and that made all of the other annoyances worth it.

I was walking with my mom in Target, when I saw several strange creatures. I didn't know what to make of them. They were looking at make-up and giggling. I asked my mom what they were, and she told me they were "girls." It turns out our species has two distinct subcreatures. This other one is more graceful and prettier.

When I got home, I got out of the car, and there was a foreign substance on the ground. It looks like leaves, but it grows up from the ground individually. It's soft when you walk on it, and when you take off your shoes it sticks between your toes and sort of tickles. My family calls it "grass." I guess it grows all over this country. I rolled in it. Then I got itchy and had to take a shower. Fantastic.

I got to drive where I wanted in a small motorized vehicle. It went very fast, and I got where I wanted by following very strict instructions that were posted on green signs all around the concrete surface along which I rolled. I like that I can travel where I want whenever I want. That sure is slick.

I went to a very fancy museum with my sister Mary. They preserve all sorts of pictures and drawings and paintings and stuff by people from a long time ago. I'm not sure why we like to preserve stuff from the past so much. But I like it. We also went to a fancy pizza restaurant where they baked us a cookie and put ice cream all over it. What a deliciously indulgent experience.

Another sister and I went to this place where they had built big plastic slides and shoved thousands of gallons of water down them, so when you hopped on them, you flowed fast all the way down. My sister giggled deviously when we went down the lazy river and she could beat me jumping from empty raft to empty raft into a giant pool with waves. (I know, I kind of broke character here, but it was fun... and her giggling was awesome... though she was frustratingly fast.)

I spent a lot of time cooking when I wanted, waking up when I wanted, and spending as much time as possible with my family and friends. Thanks God.

Senioritis

Senior year of High School was easy. I mean, I wasn't one of those people who took easy classes like Photograpy and 21st Century Study Hall. I took all real classes, because I like to learn. But being that close to the end was really neat. I could see the end of the tunnel, and on the other side was a world of possibilities. I didn't know what was going to happen when I graduated, but I was excited about it.

Right now, that's where I'm at with this deployment. Just two weeks until I go on leave, and three months until this whole deployment is over. I'm a mixture of excitement at the prospect of leaving, but intensly focused on all the things that I have to accomplish in order to leave. It's a weird balance between looking toward the future, but being wary of the present, and not getting lax. I still need to stay sharp in order to keep my guys and myself safe.

(Quick token spiritual tie: Isn't that how it is with this whole life? We're always looking foward to heaven, knowing it is the reason we live. We will one day live with God without anything filtering out our vision of Him. But we still have to maintain focus on the present in order to accomplish the thing on earth He has left us here to do. Token thought complete.)

We're towards the end of this deployment, and we're going to face the challenges of heading home. Many people's families have been damaged by this deployment, some stregthened. Some people have found God, some have left Him. Some have made good financial decisions and will return to a job. Some have been laid off, and only gotten to pay of debt, so they are returning to a worse situation. Please pray for the soldiers of my company. And for the opportunities God is going to open up over the next three months.

Betrayed by My High Tech Friend

I'm a bit frustrated today.
I was working on my computer doing some editing on the book I've been writing, and my computer decided to die. Like, one second I'm typing, and the next second, the screen is black. The computer is plugged in, so it makes no sense for my computer to just die. Most of you know I'm a die-hard Mac fan, so the fact that my Mac is betraying me is kind of an emotional experience.

For those of you who did not know I'm writing a book, let me let you in a little on that experience. It's something I started without the idea of publishing. I just wanted to us it to think over some of my life experiences and process some unanswered questions. As I progressed through the process, I started to feel like my experiences might really be able to help some other people, so I kind of wanted to try to get it published, though I was very self-conscious about it. It's got a lot of extremely personal thoughts. But as I was talking to God, and venting about this, He told me, "If I put a desire in your heart, it is your responsibility to figure out how to make it happen." And so I've been quite driven to try to get this moving. (I don't like that "responsiblity" word, but God's God... and I'm not... so we know who's word is going to matter.)

Well, I was just about done with my initial edit, and ready to send it off to some of my friends for their opinion and editing, when my computer died today. I have saved the first draft other places, but the second draft... and the last month's worth of work is saved to that computer and nowhere else.

Well, I'm online right now, and I just looked up some trouble-shooting tips, but if you don't mind praying for an inanimate object, could you pray for my computer? And for my book.

Cause God told me that even though my computer is finicky, I'm not off the hook.

I love you guys...

Plagues

A couple of days ago, it was hot. Like abnormally sweating as soon as you walk out of an air conditioned room kind of hot. Isn't it April? What kind of place could be this hot in April. Nasty little bugs came out of nowhere and flew into our mouths and eyes.

The next day a dust storm hit us. And when I mean storm, it was unlike anything most people have ever seen. If you've ever seen the movie, The Mummy, you might have a decent idea. A wall of dust could be seen rolling over the horizon. You could see it from several miles away. Moving at about 20 miles per hour, it ate the earth underneath it. As it came over us in our trucks, the world went from a sunshiney day one second, to complete brown out the next. We couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of us. The fine particles clogged our lungs. It was altogether one of the most disgusting experiences.

The day after that, a rainshower came and coated all of the land, turning everything into mud. A couple of hours into the shower, though, everything began to rinse clean. The air smelled good and felt good to breath in. You could see some red flowers begin to pop out of the brown landscape. And for just a minute, I got a reminder that... yeah, this place is desolate, and yeah, it pretty much suck here, and there is no reasonable explaination for why dust was a necessary part of creation, but I got the reminder that God still cares about this place. He is willing to water it.

Cool thought, huh?

God Stoops

I got this image in my mind the other day of Father. I don't know if it was a flashback, vision, dream or what, but this was the thought that hit me:

I was a little boy playing in a playhouse, and Father came out to play with me. He went down to His knees and still had to bend over to barely fit through the door of the playhouse. Once inside, He took up so much room that I could barely get around Him to show him all my toys. The table, the stove, and all of the fake food that me and my friends played with.

The image faded into a bigger picture of God stooping to fit under the sky. It may make His back hurt, but He stoops because He wants to see what I'm doing and because He cares about my activities.

Isn't God a great Father?

I know this might be the most confusing thing you've ever read, but I hope it's worth it.

"Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near" Hebrews 10:25.

I want to admit that I missed church this week, mostly cause I was lazy. And I immediately regret my decision. (That's kind of a weird side thought. Cause it wasn't really a decision, more of a forgetfulness that turned into passively neglecting to make a decision. But even the neglect to make a decision is a decision to not do what I should have done.) And once you figure out what I wrote in those parentheses, you can join me for the real topic.

I've been reading a book that makes the point that our major job as Christians is to praise God by delighting in Him. That's a good point, and I thought further that I like to praise God, so it's a nice set up that God gets praise out of something I like anyway. But then I thought further, lately, I haven't been praising God as much, or thinking about Him as much, or pursuing Him as much as I'd like. That frustrated me. Why am I having a hard time praising Someone Who is so praiseworthy, Who set up such a good system? (Still following?)

Then I thought to myself selfishly, that I couldn't wait to get home and be in a youth ministry again because it's so much easier to follow God when you are socially expected to follow God. This branched into two thoughts that are the point of this blog:

1) Being around Christians is important. We have the ability to excite each other about God. Fire breeds more fire. When I missed church due to neglect, I cheated myself out of an opportunity to be excited about God, and I stole an opportunity for God to be praised by me in a corporate setting. I don't get to go to church every week, why did I have to waste this opportinity? So pleases don't get used to it, or take for granted your ability to go to church. Not everybody can go to church, and seriously, you need to realize that it is a priviledge and go with the desire to be lit on fire and to light others on fire. Go to church.

2) I cannot wait to be home to be delighting in God. When someone loves something, they can't help but talk about it. Let's take drugs for instance. Drug addicts lie to their friends, steal, beg, or anything else undignified to get their fix. Is God not a delight way more pleasurable? It's simply that I let other stuff get in the way, and forget that God is more desireable than anything else. And that's dumb. And I need to get over it. I need to stop talking like any regular Soldier, and love God enough to stand up for Him. It's about love and passion for Him, and not guilt.

Just brainstorming. I know this might be the most confusing thing you've ever read, but I hope it's worth it.